At TED2013, Leyla Acaroglu pondered the question: Paper or plastic? Below, play her sustainability card game. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Leyla Acaroglu aims to make people think about how the choices they make on a daily basis affect the environment. And she aims to make thinking about this fun. In today’s TED Talk, Acaroglu turns her attention to four bits of “environmental folklore,” like the idea that it’s more environmentally sound to opt for the paper bag over the plastic one.
Leyla Acaroglu: Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore
By engaging people’s sense of play, Acaroglu and her team at the design consultancy Eco Innovators aim to get individuals and companies looking at the full life cycle of the products in order to make the kind of savvy decisions that can actually effect change.

This week, Eco Innovators held an “E-Waste Autopsy” at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, where passerbys dissected keyboards and computer mice to see what’s inside and think about how the parts could be better designed for recycling. The shop has also created a Mythbusting Sustainability App and, in the spirit of Captain Planet, animated “The Secret Life of Things.” One of Eco Innovators’ latest projects: a card game. These Design Play Cards were created to help people think about how to approach sustainability from a systems-thinking view. The game features three types of cards: purple “design problems” cards, which highlight products that lead to strain on planet Earth; turquoise “design strategy” cards, which offer approaches to rethinking them; and green “design inspiration” cards, which offer solutions that others have tried with great results to further open up brainstorming.

Want to play? Below, Acaroglu has handpicked five sets of cards to get you thinking. Take some time with each purple problem card below and brainstorm: Can you think of a way to tackle the problem, given the strategy and inspiration cards paired with it?

Challenge 1: How can you encourage cell phone users to keep their phones for longer than the usual 15 months before getting a new one?

We all know sustainability is essential to our future, in vague terms. But what does that mean for the choices we make every day? In other words: paper or plastic? For one thing, design consultant Leyla Acaroglu wants you to think beyond choosing a material for your grocery tote. Instead, she encourages us to think […]

As unusual seasonal effects raze our global ideas on sustainable practices, TED set out on a tour of 14 cities on six continents to find fresh perspectives for the TED2013 conference. While the 293 speakers who participated in this global Talent Search came from wildly different backgrounds, we couldn’t help but notice sweeping themes emerge […]

Comments (17)

As an electronic asset management company, involved in eWaste recycling and electronics refurbishing, we cannot emphasize enough on how important the design factor is when it comes to recycling and promoting sustainability. Green design in electronics is crucial to ensure proper disposal of eWaste, and more importantly, improving resource recovery from end-of-life electronics – thereby also improving sustainability of rapidly depleting resources used in electronics. Considering the amount of eWaste being generated globally, there is an immediate need to make gadgets more greener so that they can be repaired, recycled and re-manufactured more easily and efficiently.
However, till the time, we bring such green electronics with sustainable design into the mainstream; we will need to focus on reuse as a means of improving sustainability. Refurbishing to extend the usability of end-of-life electronics is even better as compared to recycling. Recycling would require carbon and energy intensive processes like dismantling and breaking down eWaste and extracting reusable raw materials, whereas refurbishing would involve upgrading/repairing parts to restore the device to working condition and make it reusable. Besides conserving energy, refurbishing would give a second lease of life to a device, and further justify the gadget’s embodied energy.

As a pioneer in the electronic asset management business, we at Attero have been promoting sustainable and eco-friendly reuse of electronics. End of life electronics collected from individual as well as bulk consumers are reconditioned and restored to proper working order at our state-of-the-art refurbishing facility to extend their useful life. These electronics are then put out into the market to be resold as refurbished products, thereby increasing re-usability, preventing eWaste from ending up in landfills and improving sustainability.

Reblogged this on Bex's Blog and commented:
This is a really great concept. How can we reduce waste? Electronics are a huge problem and the fact that stuff isn’t made to last these days. It drives the economy, but it shouldn’t.

Reblogged this on Our Global Classroom and commented:
4J today we will be exploring the blog and you will get an opportunity to practice our Success Criteria for commenting on a blog. Braiden I found this post from a blog a follow and I definitely think I could interest you in the challenges they are posing.

Reblogged this on Constant streams… and commented:
I do love different and innovative ideas, especially those that reimagine and redesign to make things more economical and more efficient. It doesn’t even have to be about the environment, for me. It just makes sense in itself. Less waste is cheaper and better too – who likes to buy another gallon of milk after throwing out a half-gallon that’s gone bad?